


“Come on man, be reasonable!”

by ayellowbirds



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:27:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27993012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ayellowbirds/pseuds/ayellowbirds
Summary: Dino Maroni has regrets.





	“Come on man, be reasonable!”

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little bit of writing exploring some of my own ideas and preferences for Batman. Written in 2016 and [posted to tumblr over here](https://ayellowbirds.tumblr.com/post/141737457163/come-on-man-be-reasonable)

Dino Maroni was, at the moment, hanging by his ankle over Atterbury Blvd. It was not a busy street by any means, the late hour meaning that only the occasional traffic passed beneath his head. 

Each approaching car meant that his slow descent was halted, so he found himself hoping that traffic might pick up. The hands at the other end of the cord suspending him above the boulevard would jerk him back towards the rooftop every time, leading to more than a few scrapes and scuffs as he was dragged across the brick exterior of the building.

But it was better by far than being dropped onto the blacktop. Needing some bandages and a new suit were preferable to needing to make room in the family plot.

He looked back up at his tormentor. Charcoal grey seemed to blend with the night sky and the surrounding skyscrapers for a moment, until his eyes refocused on the outlandish costume. From a greater distance, he’d have thought that he was looking at some kind of eyeless monster, kin to the Devil his little brother swore he saw in the pines. But he’d gotten close enough to realize that it was just clever design, some kind of lenses that didn’t reflect the streetlights, set flush against the surface of a dark cowl. The eyes behind were shadowed—makeup, maybe—and he could only catch the barest glimpse of the whites before he’d been socked in the cheek.

The dizziness that followed led him to his current position, coming to with a monster headache and a soft voice demanding information. As he began to descend again, he repeated himself.

“I don’t know nothing, be reasonable, man!”

The figure above him dragged him up again, but not far enough to get onto the roof. His tormentor leaned down, much too far, curling over the side of the roof like some kind of gargoyle. The cape hanging over his shoulders and oversized ears of the costume completed the image, looking like wings and horns from this vantage point. The face beneath curled into a grin, distorting the jagged fang-shaped opening in the mask even wider.

“Reasonable?” the soft, whispery voice replied, barely audible over the sounds of the city. “Tsk. Dino, you expect a grown man who dresses up like a bat and runs around on rooftops to be reasonable?”

Dino was silent for a moment, gaping. He probed a loose molar with his tongue, then responded.

“Grown man, huh? Sound more like a kid to—” he realized too late that those were the wrong words, and as the cord lost its tension and he began to drop, the words knocked silly flashed through his mind, followed by a thought that those were shitty last thoughts.

With a sharp pain, he came to an abrupt stop, still suspended several stories above Atterbury. He looked up, and realized there was a second, longer cord also tied to his ankle. This one was now taut, while the first hung slack.

“What was that you were you saying?” asked the Batman, dropping down onto a fire escape just out of Dino’s reach. The vigilante chuckled. “I’ve got to warn you, there isn’t a third cord.”

“Uh, right. What did ya wanna know, again?”


End file.
